Optimal planning of static and dynamic reactive power resources

This study proposes an optimisation-based method of planning static and dynamic VAR sources for the enhancement of electric power transmission systems under a set of contingencies. The overall objective function is to minimise the total installation cost of static and dynamic VAR sources, while satisfying the requirements of long-term voltage stability margin and transient voltage dip under a contingency list. The backward/forward search algorithm with linear complexity is used to select candidate locations for reactive power compensation. Optimal locations and amounts of static and dynamic VAR sources are obtained by solving a sequence of mixed integer programming problems. The New England 39 bus system is adopted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The systematic applicability of the proposed method to a large scale practical system is also illustrated using a 16173-bus U.S. Eastern Interconnection system.